The
first major test of that strategy begins on Monday in Raleigh,
North Carolina, where a three-judge panel will hear a civil
trial to decide whether the state's legislative districts -
designed by Republican lawmakers to give their party an edge -
violate the state constitution.
If the plaintiffs succeed in overturning the state's maps, it
would likely boost Democrats' chances of capturing the
Republican-controlled state legislature in 2020 - and with it,
the opportunity to draw new congressional districts in 2021
after the U.S. census is completed.
A court victory for the plaintiffs also could bolster parallel
legal efforts in other states, experts said.
"It's something that people around the country are going to be
watching," said Michael Li, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for
Justice at New York University Law School who studies
redistricting.
Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the North Carolina version
includes a provision guaranteeing "free" elections. The lawsuit
filed in state Superior Court by Common Cause North Carolina, a
good-government advocacy group, and the state Democratic Party
claims the current legislative map runs afoul of that principle.
In a similar case last year, the Pennsylvania state Supreme
Court threw out Republican-drawn congressional maps, finding
that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution's
free elections clause. Under new maps, Democrats captured half
of the state's 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives,
compared with only five in 2016.
While state court rulings are not binding in other states,
judges will often consider similar cases in crafting their
decisions, Li said.
The North Carolina case is expected eventually to reach the
state's Supreme Court. The court has six judges appointed by a
Democratic governor and only one Republican-appointed judge,
increasing the odds that a gerrymandering challenge will
succeed, according to legal experts.
EXTREME GERRYMANDERING
Every decade, the boundaries of U.S. House and state legislative
districts are redrawn to reflect population changes in census
data; in most states, the party in power controls redistricting.
Typically, gerrymandering concentrates one party's voters in a
small number of districts while diluting them everywhere else, a
practice known as "packing and cracking."
The North Carolina lawsuit involves only the district lines for
the state's legislature. Common Cause challenged North
Carolina's U.S. congressional districts in a separate federal
case that eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling
two weeks ago.
But a ruling from the state Supreme Court that state legislative
districts cannot be gerrymandered for partisan gain under the
North Carolina constitution would likely apply equally to U.S.
congressional lines, which are also drawn by state lawmakers.
The current congressional map is considered by experts one of
the most extreme examples of gerrymandering in the country.
Republicans won nine of the state's 13 seats in 2018 and
Democrats won three, with one race's results thrown out due to
fraud allegations, even as Republicans won the statewide popular
vote by only two percentage points.
Similarly, Republicans won majorities in both the state House of
Representatives and the state Senate in 2018 - despite losing
the statewide popular vote.
"It doesn't provide everyone with an equal vote," said Bob
Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause North Carolina.
"It really is an inability of citizens to hold their elected
officials accountable."
Pat Ryan, a spokesman for the state Senate's top Republican,
Phil Berger, acknowledged that lawmakers took partisanship into
consideration when drawing the state legislative map. But he
said the constitution already imposed strict rules that limit
the impact, including restrictions on dividing populous
counties.
"We're subject to one of, if not the, strictest set of rules
governing how those maps can be drawn," he said. He also said
even nonpartisan maps tend to favor Republicans, given how
Democratic voters tend to cluster in urban areas.
The trial is expected to last up to two weeks. The judges are
likely to issue their verdict weeks or months after the
proceeding ends, which will almost certainly be followed by an
appeal to the state Supreme Court from the losing side.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins
and Jonathan Oatis)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|